Congratulations to Jeff Gelles, Aron and Imre Tauber Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. He will receive the 2019 Kazuhito Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics from the Biophysical Society (BPS). He will be honored at the Society’s 63rd Annual Meeting at the Baltimore Convention Center on March 5, 2019, during the annual Awards Symposium.

The award, named for Professor Kazuhiko Kinosita, seeks to advance cross-disciplinary research and cultivate an appreciation of single-molecule studies. BPS President Angela Gronenborn, University of Pittsburgh, said “Jeff has conducted single-molecule studies at the highest level and continues to spark interests in engaging others in single-molecule studies.” (BPS Press Release)

Scifest VIII, our annual Poster Session featuring undergraduate researchers, will be held on Thursday, August 2. The poster session will be 1:00 to 3:00 pm in the Shapiro Science Center atrium.

SciFest features undergrads who have spent their summers working in both on-campus and off-campus labs doing scientific research, usually alongside grad students, postdocs and faculty members. It an opportunity for these dedicated students from across the Division of Science, including summer visitors and Brandeis students, to present their research for peers and the community.

As of today, 107 students have registered to present.

The public is invited to attend and to discuss research with the students. As always, refreshments will be served.

Julia Kardon has joined the Department of Biochemistry as an assistant professor. Her research addresses the molecular mechanisms that control the activity and quality of mitochondrial proteins to match the dynamic needs of eukaryotic cells. She discovered that a mitochondrial chaperone (ClpX) activates a conserved biosynthetic enzyme through partial unfolding. This discovery poses testable models for how protein unfolding can be controlled and limited and thus how protein unfoldases can direct diverse transformations of their substrates. Her lab will employ diverse biochemical and biophysical approaches to delineate molecular mechanisms of chaperone-mediated control of mitochondrial protein activity, in combination with cell biological, genetic, and proteomic tools to discover new components of mitochondrial protein regulation and quality control.

Niels Bradshaw has joined the Biochemistry Department as an assistant professor. Protein phosphorylation is a conserved mechanism that controls cell physiology. Niels has uncovered mechanisms that control a widespread family of protein phosphatases and direct them to their targets. Using mechanistic enzymology, structural biology, genetics, and cell biology, his research group will address how phosphatases and other signaling proteins have evolved and diversified to control important processes in all kingdoms of life.

Niels conducted postdoctoral research with Richard Losick at Harvard University. He received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco with Peter Walter, and a B.A. in Biology from the University of Chicago.

Stephan Berko Memorial Prize (This endowed prize was established in 1991 by the family of the late Dr. Berko to annually recognize an outstanding student in Physics): Ali Aghvami (graduate); Carl Merrigan (graduate); Zachary Sustiel (undergraduate)

Assistant Professor of Biochemistry Tijana Ivanovic has received a 2017 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. This award is part of the NIH’s High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, designed to fund early career investigators who propose innovative and potentially transformative projects. Ivanovic will receive $1,500,000 in direct costs over five years to spearhead a research program aimed at comprehensively characterizing molecular changes in the viral cell-entry protein hemagglutinin (HA) that define pandemic influenza viruses. With the generated insights, Ivanovic hopes to ultimately be in a position to predict the pandemic potential of influenza viruses circulating in nature.

HA densely covers the influenza virion surface, where it allows the virus to both recognize and penetrate (fuse with) the cells of its host. HA is also a key target of neutralizing antibodies that protect us from influenza infection. An influenza pandemic is characterized by the adaptation of a new HA subtype to cell entry into human cells (of what was originally an avian virus). Without the pre-existing immunity to protect us, the virus quickly spreads around the globe. During pandemic adaptation, both HA functions in target-cell recognition and membrane fusion undergo key molecular changes. Ivanovic will use a custom-built Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence Microscope (TIRFM) to visualize, in real time, individual virus particles as they engage and fuse with target cell membranes. This system will allow her to obtain large-scale quantitative information about distinct HA functions at an unprecedented level of detail. She will compare avian viruses with their evolutionary offspring that infected humans, including past pandemic strains. She hopes to develop models for predicting which viruses will lead to a major flu outbreak.

Ivanovic obtained a PhD in virology from Harvard University and carried out postdoctoral research with Stephen Harrison in molecular biophysics. She integrates these diverse backgrounds in her laboratory, where members are trained across these two and other synergistic areas (such as laser microscope optics, and analytical and computational modeling). The funds from the New Innovator award have created new opportunities for hiring, and the lab is actively recruiting postdocs, PhD students (from the Biochemistry and Biophysics, Molecular and Cell Biology, and Physics graduate programs) and undergraduate researchers to undertake this ambitious program.